[Solved] Child Maintenance When Child Not in Education

I have had an ongoing issue where I am being expected to pay child support for an adult "child" who is over 18 and no longer in education. Simply put the situation is that the Parent with care (usually mother) just has to tell the CMS and the child benefit office that the child is still in education. None of these government agencies do any checking whatsoever which allows the PWC to keep fraudulently pocketing money for another year or two. I, like others in a similar position, have faithfully made payments for years and years without complaint but feel that paying for someone to sit and play x-box all day is a complete [censored] take.

Whilst I have been investigating this, most of the advice I could find on this forum and others is that if the mother was still in receipt of child benefit then there is nothing you can do. A lot of advice seems to be to report the other parent to Child Benefit office and sit and wait and see what happens. I think you should still report the fraud BUT you should also force the issue with the CMS as it is simply NOT true that because child benefit payment are being made means the CMS can close the case. The CMS call handler will tell you there is nothing you can do but they just want you to go away quietly so they can get on with f*cking over the next caller.

I have managed to force my issue to a tribunal (date awaited for hearing) and during the process have been issues with CMS internal correspondence including internal legal advice between the case worker and their legal dept. The following is an extract of that advice which I hope will help some people out there who are having their pants pulled down in a similar fashion. Please note that this applies to the "new" 2012 CMS regulations which I think should be most people:

"In accordance with Regulation 76 of the Child Support Maintenance Calculation Regulations 2012, a person aged over 16 but under 20 must satisfy certain conditions under the Child Benefit legislation in order for them to be a child for the purpose of child support law (i.e. that they must be a qualifying young person). However, unlike the 2003 scheme, there are no regulations under 2012 which advise a child will be considered a QC as long as child benefit is in payment.

Put simply, we (The CMS) apply the Child Benefit rules for determining Qualifying Young Person status ourselves, regardless of what HMRC has done in respect of any actual award of Child Benefit.

Whilst Child Benefit is not the deciding factor, it is a good indicator on which to base a decision where there is a lack of any evidence. We should not have made a decision solely based on the fact that child benefit remains in payment alone."

Given the above I would urge you to challenge the CMS. It is very difficult to get physical evidence from a school or college that your child is not in education due to data protection, etc. BUT think outside of the box - get facebook posts, text messages, etc. What about witness statements from someone who is willing to say they haven't been in education?? I would urge you all - don't just roll over. If you can get any evidence at all then fight the CMS, ask for a mandatory reconsideration, refer to a tribunal, etc. The process really isn't complicated. It doesn't cost you anything to go to tribunal and you have nothing to lose! The worst position is that you keep paying so no worse off than you are now.

I will let you know how my tribunal goes. After that I need to try and find away to recover thousands and thousands of pounds that I have had taken from me in state sponsored fraud. Fingers crossed - wish me luck!!